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In:Variation in Language Acquisition: Unity in diversity
Edited by Laura Rosseel and Eline Zenner
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 34] 2025
► pp. 125–140

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Chapter 6
Acquisition of syntactic variation

Production of interrogatives in French preschool children

 | Université Grenoble-Alpes
 | Université Grenoble-Alpes
 | Université Grenoble-Alpes
 | Université Grenoble-Alpes
Published online: 4 November 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.34.06bus
Abstract
The interrogative is a variable with multiple forms in French, including yes/no and wh-questions, influenced by sociolinguistic factors. This chapter presents a study on the acquisition of interrogatives in French, based on two corpora of naturalistic language data collected in preschool through spontaneous communication or language workshop sessions with teachers. A total of 4,296 interrogatives produced by children aged 3 to 6 years were analyzed. Results show that several variants are present simultaneously in spontaneous conversations at 3;7, with the distribution reflecting the adult pattern, as seen in the interrogatives produced by six teachers. Analysis of the pedagogical corpus, where some forms are primed by picture books, also reveals rare variants not typically found in everyday conversations.
Article outline
  • 1.Theoretical framework: Acquisition and variation
    • 1.1Integrating variation into the acquisition of syntax
    • 1.2Focus on interrogatives, a major source of variation in French
  • 2.Corpus, method and analysis
    • 2.1Samples, corpus and method
      • 2.1.1DyLNet unsupervised corpus 1
      • 2.1.2Parm pedagogical corpus 2
    • 2.2Analysis
      • 2.2.1A pattern of variation close to that of adults, in ordinary conversations
      • 2.2.2Rare forms that emerge with priming
      • 2.2.3Typical children’s interrogatives circulated among peers
  • 3.Discussion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (50)
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